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method of meditation without the dogma
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tomas Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Bronx, New York |
Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:41 am Post subject: method of meditation without the dogma |
hi everybody this is tomas again. as some of you might know i am pretty new in this forum therefore i'd like to give a sort of autobiographical summory so you'll have a better idea of who tomas is and where i come from. first i'd like to start of by saying that i am a 23 year old US Navy veteran born in Dominican Republic and raised in the Bronx, New York. i came to become a bk because when i separated from the Navy i had an existential vacumn inside of me. i read many books and articles on such subjects psycology, philosophy (friedrich nietzsche lol), books of the bible, the gita and the coran etc. althought a lot of these plubic knowledge did satisfy my intellectual curiosity, it didn't answer the questions that were eating me up inside. the elusive self knowledge that the ancients were suggesting was becoming a 24 hr a day obsession. i ask my human contacts about the subject and they either had no knowledge of it or just didn't care about it. i became depressed because of my unhealthy habit. my mother took me to a local hospital here in the bronx where i saw a psychiatrist. the doctor suggested that i take psycotheraphy with a local psycologist. before i could go for my first session i started to look for a place that thaught hatha yoga, so i could make my "runner's limb" more flexible, but i couldn't find one. my mother had a friend at the time who "practice yoga" but when we came her house, which is a subcenter, she told me that the yoga she thaught was a yoga of the intellect. she said this yoga was more important that the classical hatha because you can't be truly fit unless your mind is fit. this sounded pretty good then she told me about the foundation course. i agreed to take it. as i was taking this course i felt that everything they were talking about was true and supported what i had learned from my previous reading endouvers. after the foundation course there came the murli. when i heard the murli i felt that i wanted to meet whoever had written such wisdom (whether it was god, bapdada, brahma baba, dadi gulzar,krishna, narayan or some old hundi guy in white close that resembled gandhi). within 2 weeks i had given up all meats, garlic, onions, liquors, woke up for amrit vela, did traffic control, went to all morning classes, gave donations, meditated before bed, before eating gave dhristi to the food and made effort to practice difficult brahmacharya. i was hoping to be approved to go to madhuban for a meeting with God however i wasn't approved. i was very disappointed. i felt i could no longer delay my education so i left the country and move to Dominican Republic DR to study medicine like many of my lokiks had in the past. in DR there was a sister trying to stablish a service center so i thought i would help her, but as time went by i felt the obligation of being close to the divine family. i planned to move to a place in the capital near to where the sister was. unfortunately a series of tests came in front of me, which i flunked (lol),that proved to ender of my auspicious efforts . you see Dominican women are very luscious and it was difficult for me to meditate with pure thoughts in a place where everywhere you turn all you see is vuloptuous Dominicanas. these tests was what got me out of the bk realm. i ended up in a situation whereas i didn't want to look at people at all so i wouldn't have to see their bodies. i didn't want to go out because the evils of maya would make fall from grace. anyways my father who is surgeon took me to see a psychiatrist. the doctor asked me why i wouldn't eat the foods they cooked for me and i answered that thoughts influence the purity of food and i only ate foods made in the remembrance of God for this was the only way that we can become pure. the doctor diagnosed me schizophrenic paranoid and ever since then i have had to take medications for the "condition".i moved back to the US. i tried to live within the maryadas in hope of returning to baba and the family but i had to be hospitalized in a psych ward because the medication i was taking were making me drull and hellucinate. while in the hospital i decided that this bk stuff isn't working for me therefore i stopped meditating and started eating meat because the veggies were horrible in there. after a month i came out of the hospital and was appaled to the thought of making love to a girl and the image of aesthetic beauty of the female body was not an image i wanted roaming in my mind however after a bit of time i was making love my ex girl after almost a year celebacy. i felt guilty at the beginnig but after a little while i just enjoyed myself. i miss the meditation, the pure vibrations and the sense of community in the bk life. the only place that i know that has a similar feeling of community and goodness is chuch, but hate people who talk in the name of god (who gave them such authority). besides i don't believe christ was god because he said he was the son of god just like we are. Does anyone know of a practical form of medition that excludes the dogma? if so please let me know. also if you have any comments or questions regarding this posting please let me know. i look foward to hearing and interacting with y'all
Joel Joined: 09 Nov 2004 Posts: 102 |
Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 7:26 am Post subject: meditation without dogma |
Thanks for sharing your story, Tomas. Whatever problems you've been having, it seems like you have an interesting life and a direct, colorful way of talking about things. As concerns meditation without dogma.... if you just want to sit, the Zen people and Vipassana people have silent gatherings--some that last for days! I am already a bit too quiet to begin with, and have benefitted a lot from the combination of action and resting in Awareness Through Movement classes. It is based on the rhthyms and movement variations that an infant uses in early movement explorations, and can tap into similar amazing learning abilities. I find myself feeling quite peaceful afterwards. In general these classes are dogma free. Although based on the work of one man, Moshe Feldenkrais, and quite structured in some ways, the exploration is internal, with value on the subjective, and understanding that there are no absolute rules (the first principle is that there are no principles.... of course that is an advanced principle that you won't hear at the beginning ) There are lots of classes in the New York area, which you can probably find for $10 or so for an hour session. The teachers, as a general rule, do not act like gurus; the classes are without much mumbo or jumbo. Well, good to hear from you. I look forward to reading whatever you might have to share. --Joel
Sam Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 47 |
Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 10:28 am Post subject: self-hypnosis |
Hi, Great post. Open and heartwarming. Have you tried self-hypnosis? I have a CD which I use sometimes. It starts off, as many self-hypnosis techniques do, with asking you to relax your body then to gaze at a point, real or imaginary, on the wall (or ceiling if you are lying down). It will be very familiar to you as it is obviously so similar to the BK method of open eyed meditation. There is no dogma at all, and people use it just to relax and unwind. These type of self hypnosis CDs and books are widely available. Hope this helps. Kind Regards, Sam.
tomas Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Bronx, New York |
Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:47 pm Post subject: Re: meditation without dogma |
joel wrote
Quote:
As concerns meditation without dogma.... if you just want to sit, the Zen people and Vipassana people have silent gatherings--some that last for days! I am already a bit too quiet to begin with, and have benefitted a lot from the combination of action and resting in Awareness Through Movement classes. It is based on the rhthyms and movement variations that an infant uses in early movement explorations, and can tap into similar amazing learning abilities. I find myself feeling quite peaceful afterwards. In general these classes are dogma free. Although based on the work of one man, Moshe Feldenkrais, and quite structured in some ways, the exploration is internal, with value on the subjective, and understanding that there are no absolute rules (the first principle is that there are no principles.... of course that is an advanced principle that you won't hear at the beginning )
hey joel, thanks for the recommendation. i did a little research on these buddhist philosophies and they seem to be interesting plus they have plenty of places in new york city where these disciplines are practiced. to my delight, they are advertised as non-secterian meditations. however these sits carry a price tag i can't affort at the time, but i will definetely look into it in the future. now joel could you elavorate a little further about the nature of combination of action and resting in Awareness Through Movement classes. what is this?and who is moshe feldenkrais? anyways thanks for the info. sam wrote:
Quote:
Have you tried self-hypnosis?
sam, i looked into this self-hypnosis and it sounds a whole lot like what the bks tell you when you take the "foundation course", you know like the mantra they tell you to inbed in yourself "I am a peaceful soul". is funny how they tell you the inspiring story of brahma baba, how he wrote all over the walls of his room "ap atma hei", "i'm a peaceful soul" until he knew he was a soul, they say it as if it was an original concept of brahma baba to use that type of autosuggestion. anyways sam thanks for the advice, this autosuggestion thing is something i'm going to look into, i went to a bookstore and ordered a book called self mastery through concious autosuggestion by emile coue to get a feeling as to what this is all about. again thanks for the advice.
Joel Joined: 09 Nov 2004 Posts: 102 |
Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:30 am Post subject: Re: meditation without dogma |
tomas wrote:
hey joel, thanks for the recommendation. i did a little research on these buddhist philosophies and they seem to be interesting plus they have plenty of places in new york city where these disciplines are practiced. to my delight, they are advertised as non-secterian meditations. however these sits carry a price tag i can't affort at the time, but i will definetely look into it in the future. now joel could you elavorate a little further about the nature of combination of action and resting in Awareness Through Movement classes. what is this?and who is moshe feldenkrais? anyways thanks for the info.
Yes, well those Buddhists can't live on virtue alone, I suppose. Not knowing that the 'best' thing would be what i am doing right now, I spent some time looking around for the 'best' thing. I encountered the Feldenkrais method in 1986, joined a training program in 1996, and this year marks my tenth year of study and professional practice. In the Awareness Through Movement classes, students explore movements designed to improve a person's fundamental organization, so that when a person sitting at a desk reaches, for example, the thought of the hand reaching brings changes automatically in the shoulders, ribs, spine, even in the hip joints so that the work of the action is distributed over muscles and joints throughout the body. When someone else reaches, you might see their arm move, but nothing changes in their torso, so they end up straining at the elbow and shoulder. How much of a person's body moves and in which ways in response to an intention such as reaching, or a spontaneously developing situation like a tumble off a bicycle or on a banana peel depends on the person's internal "self image" of which pieces are there and what is possible. So that a person who says their neck is stiff, actually has a problem twisting their torso, turning their spine, moving their ribs and shifting their weight. If all these other functions improve, suddenly the neck doesn't need to turn much for the head to look around. An older person who finds it hard to get up from a chair doesn't usually need stronger muscles; it is that their sense of what follows what is confused, so they end up trying to erect themselves when they should be bending forward and feel as tho they run into a wall. So these movement classes serve to refine all the component movement functions that we spontaneously assemble into the sophisticated actions--miraculous actions really--that we perform everyday in walking or getting up from a chair. When the component functions of a movement improve, the overall coordination is dramatically better, so the person finds standing, walking, etc. much easier. Well, it turns out that our sense of self is deeply connected to how we move, and how we move is connected to how we feel, so these exercises for movement learning can enrich our sense of self at a profound level directly. As such it is a dramatically different approach to personal improvement than cognitive approaches such as talk therapy, to which it can serve as an excellent complement. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904 - 1984) was born in Russia and emigrated to Palestine in his early teens. He was a physicist, educated at the Sorbonne, worked with Joliot Curie in early radioactivity research, on sonar in Britain during WWII, and was also an athlete and martial artist. He developed the method bearing his name through research to improve his degenerating knees, which he subsequently generalized into methods for assisting people through touch (Functional Integration) and through group classes (Awareness Through Movement.) A google search for Feldenkrais should find you additional reference materials. http://www.feldenkrais.com is the site of the North American Feldenkrais Guild, which has a directory. I also have listings of practitioners, and personally know several who work in the NY area. Okay, that's all of my spiel for now. Oh yeah, responding to your question, in the classes we do a few movements, lie down and rest, do a few more movements, so that learning happens both while moving and while resting. The change in muscle tone, posture and breathing through a 45 minute class can be remarkable, depending on the person's attention and to some extent on the quality of the teaching. Live classes are great, and there are also lots of good lessons available for purchase on audio tapes. The material is rich, the lessons developed by Moshe Feldenkrais alone number in the hundreds. They are so ingenious, like the compositions of Gershwin or Beethoven, you would never think to try doing such things if you weren't exposed to them. So it isn't really meditation, but the calm that comes through muscles and joints functioning productively in tandem is quite remarkable.
zhukov Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 86 |
Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject: |
Joel wrote:
As concerns meditation without dogma.... if you just want to sit, the Zen people and Vipassana people have silent gatherings--some that last for days!
Exactly what i'm trying to do these days - just sitting and (most importantly) JUST WITNESSING any thoughts without all the BK-inspired guilt over whether the thoughts I'm "churning" are part of any "allowed dogma", however positive. In fact, the BK refusal to acknowledge anything other than positive thoughts can be downright dangerous IMO...much better to allow anything to go thru your mind without FEAR of what are "unacceptable topics"; and JUST WATCH AND OBSERVE. I found that thoughts/feelings can pass thru you and only the observing consciousness remains. No guilt over what you "should" be feeling/thinking which is what I believe the BKs must promote in order to have its disciples successfully "toe the line" I've been reading about zen lately and a great non-dogmatic text is 'Harcore Zen' by brad warner, if you're interested in a western guy's thoughts & interpretations
primal.logic Joined: 02 Mar 2006 Posts: 16 |
Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:11 pm Post subject: |
Hi Tomas. I think we all probably relate to your story - seeking the answer when all the information or 'knowledege' in the world doesn't satisfy. If you haven't read the topic 'help please' in xbk issues, I recommend that you do.
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